Disgraced school principal hired as education professor at Fanshawe College

She’s gone from taking food from a children’s breakfast program to teaching those who want to teach kids.

Fanshawe College has hired a former elementary principal who admitted she mismanaged and misused more than $50,000 in school and board funds, including taking groceries and non-food items from a church breakfast program when she headed Kingsville public school.

The hiring of Wendy Lynn Andrusak, formerly Wendy Lynn Liebing, as an early childhood education professor has angered some Fanshawe staff and surprised the head of a professional group for registered early childhood educators.

“I’ve been with the association for 20 years and I’ve never come across this (kind of situation) at all,” said Eduarda Sousa, executive director of the Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario.

“I’m taken aback. I know this individual — she is not a member” of the association.

Fanshawe’s hiring of Andrusak is hurting morale at the college, a staffer said.

“She took money from children’s funds, and the Ontario College of Teacher’s report showed a pattern of behaviour,” said the college staffer, who didn’t want to be named. “She’s teaching young students. They will find out and I am sure their parents will be concerned, too.”

Andrusak, who was at Fanshawe last week for orientation for new professors, declined comment on her hiring.

Fanshawe has no comment, school spokesperson Elaine Gamble said.

An investigative committee of the Ontario College of Teachers, the profession’s regulatory and disciplinary body, two years ago produced a 15-page report after probing allegations of three years of spending irregularities by Andrusak, then Liebing, at the Essex County school starting in 2006.

In an agreed statement of facts, the principal admitted she “mismanaged and/or misused” more than $50,000 in school and board funds.

Andrusak admitted to spending more than $6,300 of school and board funds on gifts and certificates for volunteers and staff and that some of the gifts weren’t given to people for whom they were intended. She also used school and board funds to have her hair coloured.

Andrusak also admitted she violated board policy by selling books she owned to the school and pocketing nearly $5,700.

She resigned from the board and the Ontario College of Teachers.

Andrusak’s hiring is puzzling, because the job was hotly contested with several qualified candidates, said the Fanshawe official who works in the department.

A school official in Essex County who worked with Andrusak is shocked she’s landed another full-time teaching position.

“I’m surprised and I must say I’m disappointed in Fanshawe College,” said the official, who declined to be identified.

Andrusak is a member of the Ontario College of Early Childhood Educators in Toronto, and the college supports her return to the classroom.

“I don’t have a concern. She has been punished by the regulatory process,” said Sue Corke, registrar at the college.

“She’s not working directly with children, I don’t see harm to children, and that’s normally the criteria for concern.”

Andrusak had been teaching part time at Lambton and St. Clair colleges before attending Oakland University in Michigan in 2013, to study for her PhD in early childhood education.

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Wendy Lynn Andrusak

(Formerly Wendy Lynn Liebing)

2006-09: Mismanages/misuses more than $50,000 in school and board funds while principal at Kingsville public school in Essex County.

2009: Suspended without pay.

2012: Under a memorandum of agreement with the Ontario College of Teachers, resigns and surrenders her teaching certificate.

No criminal or civil action is taken against her.

2014: Hired by Fanshawe College as a full-time early childhood education professor.